‘Bad guys,’ poor smoke more in movies-study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – If someone is trying to make smoking
look glamorous, it isn’t at the movies, U.S. researchers said
on Monday.

Their analysis of more than 400 blockbuster films shows
that villains smoke more than heroes, and the poor light up
more often than the rich.

“Most investigators have concluded that smoking is
portrayed as glamorous and positive, but our study shows that
the exact opposite is true,” said Dr. Karan Omidvari of St.
Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey, who led the
study.

“Additionally, different studies in the past have
subjectively concluded that movies are attempting to influence
different groups of minorities to smoke. We have contradicted
these findings as well.”

Omidvari and colleagues studied leading characters in box
office hits made after 1990 portraying contemporary U.S.
society. They included “Armageddon,” “There’s Something About
Mary” and “Jerry Maguire.”

They found that 35.7 percent of antagonists smoked compared
to 20.6 percent of protagonists.

And nearly half of the screen smokers were in the lower
socioeconomic class compared to 22.9 percent in the middle
class and 10.5 percent in the upper class, they reported in the
August issue of the journal Chest.

Overall, the percentage of characters who smoked was about
the same as in real life, about 23 percent, the study said. Men
were more likely to smoke than women, and whites were more
likely to smoke than minorities — again an accurate portrayal
of smoking behavior.